About Us

Thriving in Uncharted Territory

Our Mission Statement

We create vibrant communities online and empower people through the creative use of emerging technologies. Following on our progressive values, we believe that building authentic internet voices and the establishment of a vigorous open source community is critical to the functioning of our democracy.

Just as television fundamentally altered the balance of power in politics during the 1960s—taking it from local organizations and replacing it with mass media—we believe that, harnessed correctly, the internet can enliven debate and inspire ordinary Americans to reengage in their communities.

Our Approach:

The age of one-way mass communication is quickly ending. Now information consumers—whether customers or supporters—demand two-way communications. We believe the internet empowers people to get educated and get engaged—not just online, but offline. The internet will further decentralize information and only organizations that embrace this will thrive. The internet as a medium is challenging, but cutting edge technologies can inject fun and energy into an organization or business.

We serve as a guide to this evolving medium for non-profits, corporations, and political organizations in the U.S. and around the world. In doing so, we provide a full complement of services for clients prepared to strategically engage in this increasingly important medium:

  • strategic planning,
  • online communications, organizing, fundraising, and advocacy, and
  • technical strategy and implementation.

In accomplishing our goal, we have three particular strengths:

  • Know-How
    We know the proven online strategies for success. In fact, we had a significant impact on creating them. However, each client requires a unique implementation that develops a complete community building strategy incorporating traditional media and the internet. Blogging and emails are tremendous resources to build a conversation with your constituents, but there's no one-size-fits-all package. It takes a unique touch to put it all together, and frame and deliver an issue in a unique, creative way.
  • Collaboration
    Our team approach of not just talking but listening paired with our energetic creativity will help draw out your authentic voice. We explore your history, needs, and culture to develop a tailored strategy that meets your goals and sets up the project for success. Our experience provides research-driven, proven techniques as a foundation for developing these unique plans.
  • Innovation
    We've never done the same work twice. Our culture of energetic creativity and innovation helps us work with each potential client to craft a personalized suite of services and a special programmatic agenda-whether it's issue or brand advocacy, online small-dollar fundraising, Meetups, a new blog, building out a wiki, or breathing life into an email campaign. Whatever the final results of the plan, though, it will be some of the most important—and potentially rewarding—work your company or organization will undertake.

All told, we thrive in uncharted territory. Indeed, we believe that risk-taking is the only way to achieve real transformative success. Simply put, a key to any real success is letting go and trying new things. That's where we come in.

Why we believe the internet is the future:

Let us be clear: The internet is no longer a luxury. Companies or organizations that do not embrace the new paradigm of online engagement will be at a severe competitive disadvantage going forward. This revolution is passing by organizations that stick with static, brochure-like websites. A company or organization's website is no longer an end point.

Internet communications and strategies must be incorporated into every aspect of your organization. Online community engagement like blogs help build a dialogue and keep organizations abreast of fast-moving events-as well as giving them a voice to speak directly to their audience or potential outside of the media and marketing filters.

Blogs are the future of communications. There are nearly over 70 million blogs in existence now, and that number is growing at a rate of over 120,000 EVERY SINGLE DAY. There are now 50 million Americans who read blogs, and some individual blogs have more daily readers than newspapers like the Boston Globe and Arizona Republic. As study after study has found, blog readers represent one of the most affluent and attractive audiences available.

This isn't just about blogs and email either. Even now, life online is increasingly focused on web radio (including podcasting), wikis (online collaborative encyclopedias), online games, RSS/XML syndication, and SMS text messaging. The internet is evolving quickly, and your website—and web presence-needs to evolve along with it.

Successful harnessing of the internet is a deep cultural change for many corporations and organizations. Embracing the internet means providing a level of authenticity, openness and transparency too often lacking in a world of tightly-packaged marketing slogans and advertising campaigns.

That challenge, though, is precisely why people are turning to the internet for information. It's harder to be spun with the wealth of information available at your fingertips. The future of marketing, persuasion, and branding lies online.